The Seer (A Novel of Fantasy and Future)

CHAPTER 1.1

"Mom?"

She stood behind the wet glass that barred the rain from streaking through the window into the house. Her hands were buried deep in her jean pockets, studying the irregular pattern in which the rain fell; thrashing, whirling, sloshing, thundering upon rooftops and road ways, consequentially tossing sporadic tiny water vapours in foraging mists, fogging the atmosphere. Her eyeballs moved to the center where she could see the road clearly; a car raced by with a speed uncalled for due to the stream of water splayed on the road, splashed water on the body of a pedestrian whose preceding calm aura roused up in anger and cursed at the car, the driver...of the car. Damn you, son of a bitch! was the phrase, if she read the lips correctly.

"Yes swee-" Crash! A loud thunderclap blasted the serenity of her ear drums making her heart jump into her mouth in shock, loud enough to rock the ends of the sky and tremble the foundations of the earth. And a small stone sculpture work of a knight and a horse. The horse's forelegs were kicking up, poised for running and tramping. The knight had its left hand clinging to the rope that controlled the horse, the right hand hoisted high up in the air and clenching a long sword, sword with an obvious dull blade because of the stone work of which it was made. It was the sculpture of a brave knight. But it so seemed the sculptor had no sense of respect or regard for a knight's figure, the symbol it represents, and was concerned only about his money, because as came the thunderclap, the knight's head and the horse's head reacted simultaneously and shattered into broken rocky pieces on the wet floor. He should've reflected on using stronger rocks, or considered reinforcement.

The knight was an icon in Kalador, erected in the exact centre of the outstretched city of doom, to equally share the aura of its symbolism to all and sundry within the city's borders. As it stood there, (before its ruin that is), it swanked of strength, dignity, force of sheer will, determination and the strong desire of refusing to be shaken and deterred by some nasty plague. It preached, from its position, that they were a strong people, and they would march forward, regardless of the three-year-old pestilence.

But today, as every other day since two years ago, they were reminded that all those qualities the sculpture posed to boast of were like pillars of salt, gradually but as easily washed away by the rain above and the thrashing waters below. Only that today the ruin of the knight and its horse's head finally proved it; they were no match for this misfortune. Sooner or later Kalador would be wiped out of the face of the earth and would pass as the generations go from mystery, to history.

And that is assuming the plague did not extend its venomous tentacles and swallow up the entire earth and every breathing, living organism.

"Is it true the earth is finally dying?" Elda asked.

"Dying?" her mum said and scoffed. "The earth's not dying, sweetheart!"

No, of course not. That's right. The earth is not dying. Global warming, frequent natural disasters, terrible effects of pollution, climate change, worried geologists and astronomers and - and the professionals whose career involves studying the earth and its contents and giving feedbacks, which all happened to be bad. These were symptoms of a perfect, healthy planet. The best in the solar system.

"Of course it is," she disagreed.

Kalador was peaceful, exuded synergy and unity when push comes to shove. Despite the usual cankerworm of corruption that ate up the souls of every regular conscience-silenced leader, foreigners would find Kalador a refuge point because it valued its security and the safety of its civilians. It should be the last place to endure any kind of pestilence, if indeed Mother Nature and the Sisters of Fate were just. But why, if indeed the earth was rupturing up, would it show its first sign on Kalador, the apple of Mother Nature's eye? Signs that would in no time blot it out in blight and extinguish the favoured city of the Sisters of Fate.